Dear S—-,

I need you to keep me honest. In the next story I write I’m not allowed to use my favorite props, i.e. body-less voices, ghosts, and characters whose lives revolve around making things. Bonus points if no one gets eaten.

In the meantime, I’ve created a monster.

This was an email I sent to my friends in November 2015 when I asked them to read a very early and very rough draft of this story. It was only a shadow of what this story would become, but I knew even then that there was something in it worth telling.

I’m very pleased to announce that that first draft became “Questions Asked in the Belly of the World” and it is now live and free to read over at Tor.com.

This is a story that took me five years to get right, partly because it was outside my skill level to tell until recently and partly because it took me a while to figure out what the story was actually about. It is one of the strangest stories I’ve ever written and one of my most ambitious ones to date.

My writing soundtrack to this story was “Arsonist’s Lullaby” by Hozier.

Hope you enjoy my monster!